Bucólico Café | Brunch Madrid

Dabov coffee, and a drinks list with its own accent

The coffee is specialty and the roaster is named: Bucólico pours Dabov, and builds a drinks list around it that goes further than the espresso standards. The pistachio latte is the one people come back for, the cold brew with orange and ginger is the colder counterpart, and a rose beetroot latte and a sesame latte push the list somewhere most Madrid cafés do not go.

Alongside the counter runs an obrador artesano, so the pastry is made in house rather than delivered. Banana bread with dulce de leche and a cookie with chocolate, salt and walnut are the two bakes that best show the kitchen’s hand, and they sit on a pastry table beside the coffee rather than behind glass at the till.

A Chueca room built for long mornings

The room does a lot of the work. Wood dominates, old stone walls and original wooden beams are left exposed, and a large communal low table anchors the middle, with several sections that suit a laptop. The idea the café works from is a countryside feeling carried into the city: light, plain, comfortable, more like a house than a storefront.

It changes character through the week. Weekday mornings are quieter and lean toward coffee, work and a slow breakfast, although families and café noise keep it from being silent. Weekends are busier, with queues for brunch and a fuller room. Groups larger than four may find the space tight, and orders can be taken away. The café is also used for coffee and wine tastings, art exhibitions, celebrations, catering and private events.

Order the pistachio latte, then look to the pastry

Start with the pistachio latte, the clearest signature on the drinks list, or the cold brew with orange and ginger if you want something colder and sharper. The rose beetroot and sesame lattes are the other side of the same instinct, and the Dabov beans are the quality signal underneath all of them.

Food matters as much as coffee here. Brunch runs through open toasts, sandwiches and yoghurt bowls, and the savoury dishes are more considered than the format suggests: eggs Benedict with a hollandaise made with red miso and Sichuan pepper, a grilled cheese of cheddar, Emmental, caramelised onions and apple miso mayo, and scrambled eggs with feta cheese cream, toasted pistachio, cilantro and bread. Finish at the pastry table with the banana bread and dulce de leche.